BABY TUBE: If you talk to most pediatricians, they’ll warn against letting babies under two years old watch any TV. If you talk to the folks at BabyFirstTV by the end of this year, they might start boasting, “have you seen the numbers we’ve been doing in the 3 months to 9 months demo?” Ok, so maybe they’re not likely to sell ads on BabyFirstTV that aggressively, but the network aimed at the toddler-and-below set is gaining distribution–including Time Warner Cable–and will soon be rated by Nielsen. And advertisers are starting to check out BabyFirstTV, reports WSJ, including mostly brands that target moms. Is it a good idea to launch a cable network during an age when people are cutting the cord–aimed at viewers who’ve literally just cut the cord? That’s debatable. But, for one thing, it’s cheap. The executives behind the network say that annual production costs for BabyFirstTV run as much as one episode of HBO’s “Game of Thrones.” Wait, Baby Game of Thrones. Now there’s an idea. Read More »

APRIL SHOWERS, MAY SOURS: TV networks and marketers are preparing for the annual “upfronts,” booze-filled and star-studded presentations of the upcoming season’s shows that lead into negotiations for guaranteed ad contracts. Like last year, it looks as though the upfront market will be fairly lackluster, CMO Today reports. Research and ad-buying firm Magna Global predicts the overall market could fall 7% (10% for broadcasters, 5% for cable). And it’s becoming increasingly clear that media executives can’t blame poor results on a bleak economy like they have in the past. Industry executives say there are real market changes afoot, such as streaming services chipping away at TV ratings and marketers shifting TV ad budgets into digital options like Web video. That said, the two sides are always looking to set expectations ahead of the upfronts, partly as a negotiating tactic. Read More »

THE HOLY GRAIL: Ad folks will often say that the “holy grail” of TV advertising is dynamic ad insertion, a rather clinical term that basically means swapping ads in and out during a TV show in real-time to better target viewers. For the most part, the system is still a gleam in marketers’ eyes. But Adweek reports that Google is testing a new TV ad system in Kansas City through its Google Fiber box. As Adweek points out, ads can be “dynamically inserted” into recorded programs, so if you DVRed a show from a few days ago, you could still be served more timely ads. The idea is to let marketers have a digitally-minded picture of exactly how many people are watching their TV ads and who they are. As it stands now, the Nielsen panel is the industry standard for estimating viewership. Raw data from Google Fiber boxes would, in theory, be more valuable to marketers than a poll meant to represent the whole country. Sure, it’s just Kansas City for now, but this is certainly something that will pique interest in the media and marketing world. Read More »

LOOK AT THE VUE: What are cord-cutters looking for? Dish Network’s Sling TV bets that they want a “skinny” bundle of TV channels that is significantly cheaper than the standard $90 pay TV package ($20 a month). Apple is headed in the same direction ($25 to $35 a month). Sony isn’t playing that game, though. The company on Wednesday announced that its Vue streaming service is available in select markets and will be priced from $49.99 a month to $69.99, depending on the channels included, CMO Today reports. The $49.99 tier offers more than 50 channels, including local broadcast stations and cable channels like Food Network, TNT, Fox News, Discovery and USA. With those price points, the company clearly isn’t trying to undercut traditional cable TV. Instead, it is hoping it can win over customers with the slick interface of its service, a robust cloud-based DVR that comes at no extra cost, and the fact it won’t require long-term contracts or charge cancellation fees. Read More »

APPLE’S TV: Apple has been talking to media companies about its big plans in the TV business for years — from the idea of making actual televisions to making a replacement for a cable set-top box to a plan that would get it special treatment on Comcast’s cables. All along, a hurdle has been securing rights from the media companies that own TV programming. In the last few months, those talks began to heat up again, and Apple began to zero in on creating some sort of slimmed down cable package, Recode reported last month. Now, details are emerging about the plan: the “skinny” bundle would launch this fall across all iOS devices like Apple TVs and iPads, have about 25 channels, and be priced at about $30 to $40 a month, WSJ reports. Broadcasters like ABC, CBS and Fox would likely be signed on. One notable absentee: Comcast’s NBCUniversal, which had a falling out with Apple during an earlier round of talks. As these “skinny bundle” options proliferate — Dish just launched its own $20 a month version, Sling TV — everyone from big broadcasters to mid-tier cable channels will have to jockey for which services they want to be a part of. Consumers, too, will have to think hard about their media diet: an Apple service here, some Netflix there, tack on some Hulu maybe. It’s a scary thought for cable companies married to the old bundle model. Read More »

SOUTH BY: Thousands of media and ad industry types will descend on Austin for South by Southwest, but the question will be whether they’re getting anything out of the trip other than glad-handing, beers and brisket. This year’s attendees say there’s plenty to learn to materially help their business, CMO Today reports. One thing likely to excite marketers: a lot of virtual reality-related sessions on the agenda, an area that many think could be the ad medium of the future. “This sector [virtual reality and augmented reality] reminds me of when the Internet was new. Some marketers get it and some don’t and they look at you and say ‘you’re crazy,” Brian Mullins, chief executive of Daqri, told CMO Today. The company is hosting a “4D Showcase” at the event. In general, marketers say SXSW can seem overwhelming, but it’s a place to find an interesting thought or two to bring back to your homebase. Read More »

CABLE CONFAB: How worried are cable TV executives about falling ratings and the explosion of streaming video among former traditional-TV-loving Americans? If they weren’t already freaking out, they probably were after the Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau last week gave a talk on the subject to a room of full of network ad executives, reports CMO Today. The picture painted wasn’t pretty: the CAB showed research finding that nearly 40% of TV’s third and fourth quarter ratings declines were due to subscription Web TV services like Netflix, Amazon and Hulu. Yikes. Guess what the media industry did over the past half decade? Feed the rise of Netflix by providing it with lots of off-cable repeats that got millions of people in the habit of commercial-free binging. Oops. That move “sounded like a good idea” said Scripps Networks Chief Revenue Officer Steve Gigliotti. Now, based on one estimate, Netflix households stream 100 minutes of content a day. Read More »

DATA ON TV: Comcast is in talks to a acquire Visible World, a move that would better position the cable giant for a future in which TV ads are served to viewers based on data, as opposed to broad demographic categories, reports CMO Today. Visible World works to let marketers target specific audiences by using cable set-top box data, for instance. And while the deal could fall through, it’s clear Comcast is already interested in the burgeoning space — it acquired video ad firm FreeWheel for $320 million last year. The deal also reflects the TV world’s desire to better use data to target ads, a system commonplace on the Web but less familiar to the more old-school medium. Read More »

DOWN THE TUBE: You might think YouTube — which attracts more than one billion monthly users and big brand dollars — is a highly profitable unit of Google. But you’d be wrong. WSJ reports that YouTube is “roughly break-even,” despite pulling in about $4 billion in revenue last year, up from $3 billion in 2013. It’s clear that YouTube has invested heavily in content, but as it stands there are still a lot of “junk” videos on the service, as one analyst put it. Still, many advertisers like the niche audiences — often of young people — that popular YouTube channels often attract. YouTube is facing mounting pressure from rivals like Facebook and newcomers like Vessel who are looking to poach stars for their own video efforts. Read More »

PLAY BALL: As media companies rush to find a viable way to stream TV content over the web, an unlikely player has emerged as the go-to technology service for networks getting into the space: MLB Advanced Media, baseball’s tech division, WSJ reports. MLB got into streaming its own baseball games in 2002, before even Netflix entered the space. Now, MLBAM is or will be powering streaming services from a handful of big companies: HBO, Sony, WWE and others. The service says its in talks with 40 would-be clients. Now the question is what to do with the unit. MLB could look toward a sale or IPO, but the more likely course would be to spin it off and bring in media companies as strategic investors. The league believes MLBAM’s valuation is north of $5 billion. MLB would be keen to stay in control of the entity. Read More »

About CMO Today

CMO Today is an offering from The Wall Street Journal, helping marketing executives discern who and what matters in marketing today. Contact our editors with news items, comments and questions at CMOToday@WSJ.com.